Serial Acquirers

Alexandra Peers covers the Amory Show and its satellites for New York Magazine and determines that buyers are looking for multiples which sell at a lower price point:

Not that art didn’t sell — it definitely did. But what’s selling, at the Armory and other fairs, is mostly multiples, the limited editions that cost less than one-of-a-kinds. Hank Willis Thomas, a star of the Rubell Collection show of Black art in Miami, had one of the sensations of the Armory with his artificially aged eighties photo of Michael Jackson from Ebony magazine called Time Can Be a Villain or a Friend. At prices of $22,000 and $8,000 (by size), two had sold and more were on reserve by early evening, according to Katie Rashid, director of Jack Shainman Gallery. [ . . . ]

Artist Angel Orensanz, who runs an art foundation with spaces in New York, Paris, and Madrid, said he bought a Joel Shapiro multiple from Knoedler for about $25,000. “It’s philosophical, melancholy.” Said Whitewall magazine publisher Michael Klug: “Some people are feeling a little sad, but they’re nicer to each other.”